


The Sky And The Clouds And The Sun

by HerHighnessThePrincess



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, M/M, anyways this is just allukas perspective of the election arc hope you have fun reading, why am i like this, why did i write this in one sitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29841300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerHighnessThePrincess/pseuds/HerHighnessThePrincess
Summary: Her room had four walls, a ceiling, a floor, one door, and no windows. There was a vent in the ceiling that she could not reach, so far above her that even when she put all her stuffed animals in a pile her fingers could not come close. Two of the walls were longer than the other two, but all had the same pattern. A blue sky with trees and mountains and flowers on it. To be specific, there were 12 flowers, two mountains, and four trees. The room had 73 stuffed animals, 22 dolls, 13 different sets of clothing for her to wear, and not a single mirror. Everything was soft and fluffy and harmless.
Relationships: Alluka Zoldyck & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs & Alluka Zoldyck, Gon Freecs & Alluka Zoldyck & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	The Sky And The Clouds And The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came out of the realization that Alluka probably hasn’t even seen anything outside for literal years. So here’s Alluka’s perspective on her life, and all the good and bad in it. Featuring the weather, extensive liberties on the backstory, way too much rambling, and very complicated family dynamics.
> 
> TW: implied child abuse, neglect.

Her room had four walls, a ceiling, a floor, one door, and no windows. There was a vent in the ceiling that she could not reach, so far above her that even when she put all her stuffed animals in a pile her fingers could not come close. Two of the walls were longer than the other two, but all had the same pattern. A blue sky with trees and mountains and flowers on it. To be specific, there were 12 flowers, two mountains, and four trees. The room had 73 stuffed animals, 22 dolls, 13 different sets of clothing for her to wear, and not a single mirror. Everything was soft and fluffy and harmless. 

Alluka did not know how long she had been in here. She had been forced in here without warning one day, Silva’s hand on her back (cold and rough and scary), with the rest of the family behind him, all stone cold faces and thin lips. Except Killua. Killua looked like he had been about to cry.

At first she thought they would let her out. It had taken her a very, very long time to accept that they would not (she did not know how long, because there were no clocks or calendars in her room, just her and her four walls and her ceiling and floor and door and  ~~ a window ~~ her 22 dolls and the 12 flowers and the blue, blue sky she was never going to see again-)

At least she wasn’t alone. When she was first thrown in here, in her childish rage and misery she had ignored the other person living in her body. They had not ignored her, but not spoken to her either-just kept a close watch on her, checking to see if she was still angry. It took a long time for Alluka to stop being angry. It took even longer for her to call the other being a sister.

Things were best whenever Killua came to visit. Seeing him was a rarity even before she was put in this room, but that made seeing him even better. The other family members only wanted something from her, with their cold eyes and sharp tongues and quiet demands.  _ Give us what we want _ .  _ Don’t ask for too much in return _ .

She’ll never tell Killua this in a million years, but she never asks for too much from the rest of the people who should be her family. She is scared of taking too much. Because she does not know what will happen to her if she asks for more than they are willing to give, but she knows that they are always watching and listening and examining her, and it is by their grace that she was put in a room instead of taken out back like a dog and-

She does not think about that. She is quiet. She is good. She does not ask for too much. She only asks for head pats and tries not to shiver at the touch. None of them are kind or gentle like Killua.

~~ Killua will never tell her this in a million years either, but he is the reason she has a nice room with soft things to play with and a bed and decorated walls and three meals a day instead of the darkest, dampest corner of the basement. If he could not save his little sister from captivity, he may as well make sure her cell is nice and warm. ~~

Her room is nice and warm. She has things to play with. Killua visits occasionally, until he doesn’t, he just stops one day, where did he go, did he become like the rest of them, what happened to the only person in the world with nice and soft hands and kind eyes and fluffy hair-

Killua visits until he doesn’t, and the room is colder after that. Now she only has Nanika for company, and they spend most of their time missing Killua together.

She asks Illumi once where Killua went, because she is beginning to get worried. Killua has never been gone for this long, and he had been even paler than normal the last time she saw him, and maybe something happened-

“Nothing is wrong with Kil,” is all Illumi says, and she hates that nickname, hates it because she knows Killua hates it, she knows from the way he shivers whenever he hears it. “He just doesn’t want to visit you anymore.”

She doesn’t believe him, of course. Alluka is a weak and stupid child compared to the rest of her family, but she still knows enough to know that Illumi always lies.

\---

Things are static in her room. The lights are on all the time, there are no windows, and there are no calendars or clocks. She does not know how long it has been since she last saw Killua. 

She does not know how old she is. All she knows is that she is still small and frail, except for when she is Nanika, or Nanika is her, and that is why she is in this room in the first place. She traces her finger over the patterns on the wall, trying to remember what mountains and flowers and trees and the sky actually looked like. If they’ve changed since she last saw them. With the color on the wall never changing and the lights never flickering and stale, stale air, her life is still.

Time starts ticking for her again when the door slides open, and Alluka turns to face a boy with starlight in his hair and an ocean in his eyes, and her heart skips a beat before she flings herself forward and hugs him as hard as her pathetic and weak limbs will allow. He hugs her back as well, whispers apologies, tells her how sorry he is, and then settles down to play with her. 

Killua is different than she remembers. The last time she saw him, his hair tumbled down to his shoulders and bright blue eyes were dark whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. 

Now, he is older and taller, hair cut down to his ears and eyes shadowed over. There’s a kind of weariness he did not have before, with dark eye bags and bones standing out against pale skin, but his smile comes easier now and that’s better than what he was like before. 

His hands are still kind and soft when he hugs her, and that’s all that really matters. Whatever happened, it was not enough to make him like the rest of her family.

He’s strong enough to pick her up now with ease, she notes when he does it. He’s fulfilled her three requests, and now he has a wish, but he has not made it yet. Instead he just looks at her for a couple seconds, a tired, happy look in his eyes, before he carries her to the door, holding her tight and safe.

What happens next is the first time she has been surprised since she first came into the room.

\---

When they first make it outside the house (outside, they’re  _ outside _ , with trees and flowers and the blue blue sky spread out above them), the first thing Alluka does is hide her face in the crook of Killua’s neck. The world is so bright and blinding compared to her room, burning her eyes and making her flinch. Even with her eyes squeezed as tightly shut as possible, the light still infiltrates, making colors dance on the back of her eyelids. The rest of the world is just as overwhelming: after years of nothing but the same stale air, the same noises, the same things over and over and over again what she is now in is overwhelming by comparison. The wind rustles through the leaves and the grass and her hair, tangling it, and she smells the freshly cut lawn and something sweet. The fabric of Killua’s shirt is soft and familiar by comparison, and so is he, so she holds him tight and trusts him to keep her safe.

She only gains enough courage to open her eyes when the brightness dims somewhat, and the first thing she sees is the color. The world is green and brown and blue and a myriad of others, all of them so vivid and strange that she does not know what to do. It takes her a second to orient herself, and realize the sky is above her, with green leaves shrouding it over in certain patches, sharp beams of sunlight reaching down to the ground from the gaps in the canopy. The leaves are attached to a tree, with a brown and rough trunk that Alluka wants nothing more than to reach out and touch, to see how different it is from the paintings on her walls. There are so many other things as well, fruit hanging from the branches and flowers on the ground, the twittering of a bird above them, and Alluka wonders how she ever forgot something so amazing. 

She doesn’t realize she’s gaping until Killua laughs softly, a pleasant noise that she’s never heard from him before, and she turns to face him. Killua looks different in the sunlight, somehow, eyes shining with some kind of emotion she does not know, and hair radiant in the light. 

“First time outside in a while, huh,” Killua says, a sad sound to his voice. “Do you like it?”   
  


She grins the widest she has in years, and hugs him very tightly.

And then, because he’s the best big brother she’s ever had, he asks softly, “Does Nanika like it too?”

She does.

\---

Up until Illumi attacks, Alluka does not stop staring at the new world. Everything is so new and vivid and amazing, from the flower she picks off the ground to the butlers to the car to Killua himself. Everywhere she looks there is a new color, or smell, or sharp angle that wasn’t in her room, or something else to  _ do _ for the first time in years. Some of the butlers are mean and Killua is clearly worried about something, but Alluka doesn’t consider it. She’s finally free, for the first time in years, and she’s going to cherish it as much as she can.

There are some things to the new world that she doesn’t like, however. Like the sound of Illumi’s voice when he comes on the phone, and the way he  _ speaks _ to Killua, like he knows what is better for Killua than Killua himself. She also doesn’t like how Killua sounds when he’s angry. She doesn’t like it when he’s anything other than happy.

She  _ really _ doesn’t like the noise as the car collides with the truck, or the yell of fear that Killua makes as everything dissolves into chaos, or the noise and feel of it as the car begins to slide down the hill with a loud screech, and for a split second Alluka misses her room where she never saw Killua angry and never heard that screech. 

And then, before she knows it, they’re running, faster than she ever thought she would go, Killua’s arms wrapped around her tight and the smell of electricity washing over her. They’re going so fast all Alluka can hear is the wind in her ears, and she feels her hair whipping about her face, and she closes her eyes tight because she was bored and lonely in her room but at least she wasn’t afraid like she is now.

When Killua stops, he’s breathing hard, and he reeks of sweat and fear and ozone, humming just beneath his skin. Alluka takes her first breath when he stops, limbs shaking weakly around him, and she almost falls when he sets her on the ground.

The outside world isn’t as nice now. Despite the nice and sweet words Killua says to her, his body tells a different story, tense and eyes darting around the trees and the shadows and anything,  _ anything _ that Illumi could potentially use. Alluka wants to help him but she doesn’t know  _ how _ , all she knows is that Killua is scared for her and because of her, and she doesn’t like it.

“Big brother?” she asks in a shaky voice. “Would everyone get along better if I weren’t here?”

Killua’s eyes widen and he looks at her with a heartbroken expression, one hand tucking away a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

He doesn’t answer Alluka’s expression. Instead, he asks one of his own. “Alluka, if I were the only person who truly loved you, would you be happy?”

And that-

That makes her happy. It makes her very happy. Because when she was in her room and Killua wasn’t there, she thought for a brief moment that nobody loved her. 

\---

Illumi is scary. Illumi is scary and violent and not at all like Killua. Killua is bright and lovely and a good person, and Illumi is a dark void with darker intentions who makes Killua afraid. It’s for that reason she doesn’t like Illumi.

Illumi is the monster under the bed and in the closet, and Killua is the prince that saves her, and Alluka is the useless little princess who cannot do a thing to save herself.

Illumi gets so scary sometimes that Alluka is glad when Nanika appears, sinking underneath the surface of her own skin and watching things happen while not being quite so afraid. She listens and watches but does not interact, so she listens to Killua say “if you hurt her you are not my brother” and watches him give up the wish to heal Tsubone’s hand, and she doesn’t understand how such a good person can come from a family like this.

She sinks under the surface entirely after that, trusting Killua to save her and hating herself for needing saving.

\---

She does not like the hospital. The smell invades her nose the second she wakes up, like her room but worse, with a staleness mixed with chemicals and the faintest smell of blood. Although maybe they brought the smell of blood with them from the mansion.

Killua is sitting next to her when she wakes up, blue eyes narrowed on the ground. He’s perfectly still, but she can tell he is scared. And hopeful. And desperate.

When he explains what he needs her to do, she does not blame him. Even if Killua removed her from the house only for this purpose and will toss her to Illumi the instant he has his friend back, she will not blame him. He has done so much for her already, and she feels like she has lived a lifetime in the day she has spent outside. 

She lets Nanika take over again, and both of them approach the hospital bed with the form wrapped in bandages on it. Killua leads her hand to the wrist of the form, and he unwraps the bandages from it, and-

Even from her place in the distance, Alluka can see her brother’s distress. His breathing turns shaky and his eyes are wide and horrified, and all of a sudden his only focus is on the husk of a person before him, and not her.

She cannot blame him for that either. This person is Killua’s friend, the person who saved him from their family just as Killua did for her, and if she saw Killua like this there would not be a single thing in the world that could stop her from helping him.

Killua chokes out the order, Nanika places her hand on a single spindly and burnt finger, and the world goes white.

\---

Killua, as it turns out, is not perfect. Alluka realizes when she wakes up, exhausted, to a crying Nanika and a brother who will not meet her eyes.

She yells at him, and finds out she doesn’t like her own voice when it’s angry, high-pitched and squeaky. Nor does she like how Killua looks at her, wetness beginning to gather at the corner of his eyes when he asks her to bring Nanika back so he can apologize. 

The world is a lot more complicated than her room was, she is beginning to realize.

\---

She likes Gon. Likes everything about him. If Killua is a star then Gon is the  _ sun _ , all bright and shining and happy smiles and radiant optimism. The first she sees of him when he isn’t wrapped in bandages and oozing poisonous aura is when he spots Killua and runs across three lanes of traffic to tackle him into a hug that almost knocks both of them into the next lane of traffic. The next thing she knows he is babbling out apologies to Killua, something about ants that she doesn’t really get, but then Killua smiles, soft and relieved and happy, and she knows Killua has already forgiven him. Then Gon turns on her, asking who she is and complimenting her on her dress and hair, eyes bright and wide and sincere in a way she has never seen before, not even from Killua.

She can see why Killua was willing to do anything for him. Just a couple of minutes in her presence and she feels the same way.

The first thing they do together is go to the nearest restaurant, and order a disgusting mix of sugar, carbs, fruit, and milkshakes, not holding back at all. Gon spends the entire time talking to her, asking where she’s been all this time, and then if he can kill Illumi for her, and Alluka laughs and laughs and laughs. All the while Killua stares at them both with a wistful fondness in his gaze.

It’s the most relaxed she’s seen him so far, she realizes. And now she’s very thankful for Gon. If not for him, her and Killua would still be in the mansion, trapped by a family not nearly as caring as this boy.

She says as much, and that makes both Gon and Killua flush, Gon stammering out  _ your welcomes _ and Killua saying he didn’t need Gon to save him. That gets them into a light hearted argument that leads to them getting kicked out of the restaurant, but Alluka doesn’t mind. She’s never been this happy in her life.

\---

As it happens, Gon cannot stay. She doesn’t know all the details, or even any of them, but he and Killua decide to go their separate ways, at least for a little bit.

Alluka doesn’t understand. Gon makes Killua happy, and he makes her happy, so why should he leave?   
  


She only asks Killua once. Something in his eyes glazed over, and he said something about telling her when she was older.

She only accepts it after Killua agrees to travel to the World Tree with Gon. They spend days walking and dragging themselves up mountains and trying not to fall onto the dirt. Killua keeps a tight hold on her wrist and a careful gaze on Gon’s back whenever he runs ahead, full of boundless energy and eyes fixed on the horizon.

“He hasn’t really changed, huh,” Killua mumbles one day, and Alluka doesn’t understand but she doesn’t pry. Whatever happened is between them, after all. She hopes.

They reach the World Tree on an early morning, and spend the day travelling around the town. Alluka buys everything she wants because she knows Killua will let her, and she stares up at the tree with wonder about how anything could be so tall.

“I’m gonna climb that,” Gon says from right beside her and she jumps, so engrossed in the scenery that she didn’t notice him. “I’ve gotta meet my dad.”

“Didn’t you already meet him?” she asks, confused. “At the election thingy.”

“Not really. Well. Yes. But. Ugh,” Gon scratches behind his ear, looking bashful. “I didn’t say all that I wanted to say. And I was so desperate to get back to Killua that I barely focused on it.”

Alluka hummed, focusing her eyes on the tree again. How anyone could climb it with raw strength was beyond her, but after the past couple of days she supposed anything was possible. 

“Thank you, Gon,” she said softly. He turned to her, perplexed.

“What for?” he asked. “I mean, you guys were the ones that helped me, I’d still be in that hospital if not for you-”

“Thank you for being Killua’s friend,” she clarified. “I don’t think I need to explain about how bad his childhood was, but you’re probably the first good thing to happen to him. I’ve never seen him this happy before.”

He laughed, boisterous and loud. “I think I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that. You were definitely the first good thing to happen to him.”

She flushed. “Well, I haven’t been exclusively a good thing for him-”

“Nah, you have been,” Gon said. “You know how you said you’ve never seen him this happy before? Well, I haven’t either. So thanks for helping Killua when I couldn’t be there.”

She flushed even harder. “Oh come on, without you Killua wouldn’t have been able to leave the house the second time, and then I wouldn’t have gotten out either-”

“Wrong again,” Gon said, and she rolled her eyes. “Killua would have gotten out eventually, and he would have come back for you. He’s just too good to leave you behind.”

She glared at him. Killua certainly hadn’t been wrong when he said Gon was stubborn. “I’m not going to win this argument, am I.”

“Nope!” Gon said cheerily, holding a crepe up to her. “Want some?”

Alluka laughed. “‘Course I do. Killua isn’t the only one with a sweet tooth.”

He handed it to her, and they stood in companionable silence for a little bit, Gon staring at the tree and her eating the third most delicious food she’d had today (right behind the chocolate cake she’d had for breakfast and the hot chocolate she had at brunch).

“Please take care of him when I’m gone,” Gon said suddenly, and Alluka was forced to swallow the food in her mouth quickly to respond.

“He’s my brother. Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s just,” Gon frowned, staring at the ground. “Ever since he left the house, Killua has been with me. He didn’t really have a goal in life besides being with me. So I’m worried about how he’ll react once I’m gone.”

Alluka hummed softly. “So I’m a replacement?”

“Wha-oh god no-”

She laughed. “Just teasing. Yeah, I’ll help him. I’ll be just annoying enough to keep his mind off you.”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t annoy him no matter how hard you try,” Gon said. “But thanks. It means a lot to me. After what happened, I want Killua to be okay.”

He sounds sad. And guilty. And Alluka didn’t like that tone in his voice, or Killua’s, but she didn’t know how to fix it. She wasn’t even sure if she could.

“He’s forgiven you, y’know,” she said. “For whatever happened. I can tell.”

“Yeah, that’s just it,” Gon said. “I don’t think he should. Not just yet.”

Alluka turned to him, confused. “Don’t you want him to forgive you?”

“Not if I don’t deserve it,” Gon mumbled, sounding far away. Then he blinked and shook his head rapidly. “Sorry, this must be incredibly confusing to you. I know Killua and I have been really tight-lipped about it.”   
  


“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s between you two. I just want to keep both of you happy.”

Gon ruffled her hair. “You really are just like him.”

Alluka rolled her eyes. Boys were confusing sometimes.

\---

Walking away from Gon is not the hardest thing Alluka has ever done. It’s hard, sure-it’s only been a couple of days but she already cares about him so much. Given time, she knew it would be borderline impossible to leave. It already feels like a claw tugging at her heart as is.

She has no idea how bad Killua has it. As soon as he turns around, the happy smile on his face fades, eyes dulling over, and feet dragging on the ground as he walks away. Alluka hurried after him, holding his hand tight and squeezing it.

Gon isn’t here, now. It’s up to her. Killua has already done so much for her, she can at least do this for him.

Killua makes it all the way back to the hotel before he shuts down, laying down on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. Alluka sat next to him, listening to his breathing as he tried to get it under control, and watching the wet sheen in his eyes.

“He really meant a lot to you, didn’t he,” she said, more statement than a question, and Killua nodded, swallowing thickly.

“A-at,” he stammered. “At one point, he was everything to me. He was my entire world.”

“I get that,” she said softly. “He’s a bit… overwhelming. In a good way.”

Killua snorted. “That’s one way to describe him. Or it could be that he was just the first person outside my family to show me an ounce of respect.”

Alluke smiled. “I think it’s a bit more than that.”   
  
“Maybe,” Killua said. “Guess I won’t find that out until we spend a little bit of time together.”

His voice sounded thick, like he was about to cry. He wiped his eyes and swallowed weakly, meeting Alluka’s gaze. “But I don’t wanna spend the first day I have without him obsessing over it. Let’s do something else.” 

Alluka smiled. “You wanna go to the all you can eat buffet and see how long it is until they kick us out for eating too much?”

Killua laughed wetly. “Sounds like a plan.”

“And maybe tomorrow we hit the road, and go meet some other people!” Alluka said, before blinking. “You do know people other than Gon, right.”

“Brat,” Killua grumbled. “Yeah, I do. We could visit Leorio.”

“That man who yelled at us over the phone?”   
  
“The very same. He’s even weirder in person, trust me.”

“If he’s willingly friends with you, he has to be.”

“ _ HEY- _ ”

Yeah, Alluka could get used to the outside world.

**Author's Note:**

> I typed this out in like four hours instead of doing a 4000 word essay. Somebody bash me upside the head please, get my priorities straight.
> 
> Also this is entirely unbetad, written by someone running on zero hours of sleep, and someone who could not be bothered with things such as grammar. If you notice a mistake in spelling, please tell me, but I’m probably not going to change the tenses of words just because that would be too much of a hassle.


End file.
